Caltech's Engineering and Science magazine

This past summer, 307 Caltech students—and 97 students from colleges and universities around the world—decided to spend their time SURFing in laboratories or in the field, instead of surfing a wave or the internet. As part of SURF, the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships program, they’re studying atmospheric chemistry, investigating human olfactory receptors, and exploring vernacular…

By Daniel J. Kevles Daniel J. Kevles is the J.O. and Juliette Koepfli Professor of the Humanities, Emeritus, at Caltech and the Stanley Woodward Professor of History, Emeritus, at Yale University. He was on the faculty of Caltech’s Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) for more than 35 years (1964-2001), focusing on the…

On November 2, 1891, Throop University, named for its founder, Amos Throop, was born. According to the book Millikan’s School: A History of the California Institute of Technology by former Caltech archivist Judith Goodstein, the school was a “thoroughly undistinguished little college” that barely survived its first year in Pasadena. Two years later, it expanded…